Arthur Conan Doyle

I. How the Black Sheep came forth from the Fold
II. How Alleyne Edricson came out into the World
III. How Hordle John cozened the Fuller of Lymington
IV. How the Bailiff of Southampton Slew the Two Masterless Men
IV. How a Strange Company Gathered at the "Pied Merlin"
VI. How Samkin Aylward Wagered his Feather-bed
VII. How the Three Comrades Journeyed through the Woodlands
VIII. The Three Friends
IX. How Strange Things Befell in Minstead Wood
X. How Hordle John Found a Man whom he Might Follow
XI. How a Young Shepherd had a Perilous Flock
XII. How Alleyne Learned More than he could Teach
XIII. How the White Company set forth to the Wars
XIV. How Sir Nigel sought for a Wayside Venture
XV. How the Yellow Cog sailed forth from Lepe
XVI. How the Yellow Cog fought the Two Rover Galleys
XVII. How the Yellow Cog crossed the Bar of Gironde
XVIII. How Sir Nigel Loring put a Patch upon his Eye
XIX. How there was Stir at the Abbey of St. Andrew's
XX. How Alleyne Won his Place in an Honorable Guild
XXI. How Agostino Pisano Risked his Head
XXII. How the Bowmen held Wassail at the "Rose de Guienne"
XXIII. How England held the Lists at Bordeaux
XXIV. How a Champion came forth from the East
XXV. How Sir Nigel wrote to Twynham Castle
XXVI. How the Three Comrades Gained a Mighty Treasure
XXVII. How Roger Club-foot was Passed into Paradise
XXVIII. How the Comrades came over the Marches of France
XXIX. How the Blessed Hour of Sight Came to the Lady Tiphaine
XXX. How the Brushwood Men came to the Chateau of Villefranche
XXXI. How Five Men held the Keep of Villefranche
XXXII. How the Company took Counsel Round the Fallen Tree
XXXIII. How the Army made the Passage of Roncesvalles
XXXIV. How the Company Made Sport in the Vale of Pampeluna
XXXV. How Sir Nigel Hawked at an Eagle
XXXVI. How Sir Nigel Took the Patch from his Eye
XXXVII. How the White Company came to be Disbanded
XXXVIII. Of the Home-coming to Hampshire

CHAPTER I.

HOW THE BLACK SHEEP CAME FORTH FROM THE FOLD.

The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the
forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters
on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing
rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common
sound in those parts--as common as the chatter of the jays and
the booming of the bittern. Yet the fishers and the peasants
raised their heads and looked questions at each other, for the
angelus had already gone and vespers was still far off. Why
should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were
neither short nor long?

All round the Abbey the monks were trooping in. Under the long
green-paved avenues of gnarled oaks and of lichened beeches the
white-robed brothers gathered to the sound. From the vine-yard
and the vine-press, from the bouvary or ox-farm, from the marl-pits
and salterns, even from the distant iron-works of Sowley and the
outlying grange of St. Leonard's, they had all turned their steps
homewards. It had been no sudden call. A swift messenger had
the night before sped round to the outlying dependencies of the
Abbey, and had left the summons for every monk to be back in the
cloisters by the third hour after noontide. So urgent a message
had not been issued within the memory of old lay-brother
Athanasius, who had cleaned the Abbey knocker since the year
after the Battle of Bannockburn.

A stranger who knew nothing either of the Abbey or of its immense
resources might have gathered from the appearance of the brothers
some conception of the varied duties which they were called upon
to perform, and of the busy, wide-spread life which centred in
the old monastery.